The Detroit Tigers walked five times.
But they also managed just two hits in Tuesday’s 1-0 loss to the Kansas City Royals in the second of three games in the series at Comerica Park, as left-hander Daniel Lynch, making his fifth start this season, pitched seven scoreless innings.
The first hit for the Tigers (31-41) came from Andy Ibáñez, a pure contact hitter who sent Lynch’s first-pitch changeup on the ground and into center with one out in the fourth.
“We didn’t do anything offensively to pressure Lynch,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “When you swing at a lot of first pitches, and then we don’t generate a lot of hard contact, it makes for a quick night.”
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The Royals, who have the worst record in the American League Central, scored the only run of the game in the sixth inning off right-hander Michael Lorenzen. Maikel Garcia hit a single, advanced to second base on a wild pitch and scored on Matt Beaty’s double into the right-field corner off a changeup for a 1-0 lead that stuck.
“I leave a changeup up for Beaty to hit, so that’s frustrating,” Lorenzen said. “I’m going to think about that tonight in bed, for sure. Otherwise, it’s a 0-0 game, so that’s tough, but I felt fine.”
Lynch, who entered Tuesday with an 0-3 record and a 5.79 ERA, allowed just one hit, two walks and picked up two strikeouts. He threw 47 of 78 pitches for strikes and held the Tigers to an 87 mph exit velocity on 19 balls in play.
The Royals went to left-handed reliever Aroldis Chapman in the eighth inning. He walked Cabrera and pinch-hitter Matt Vierling to put runners on first and second base. A wild pitch advanced both runners into scoring position, Zack Short then worked a walk to load the bases with two outs.
Chapman escaped by getting Spencer Torkelson to ground into a forceout.
“A ball up the middle would have scored two,” Hinch said. “It would have potentially changed the whole outcome of the game.”
Right-hander Scott Barlow took over for the ninth inning.
Ibáñez grounded out, but Javier Báez kept the opportunity for a comeback alive with a two-strike double off Barlow’s changeup. Pinch-hitter Kerry Carpenter grounded out, which advanced Báez to third base, and pinch-hitter Zach McKinstry struck out swinging to end the one-run game.
“We gave ourselves the best chance in the eighth and ninth,” Hinch said. “We got the matchups we wanted with guys on base, but we didn’t do anything with it.”
Wobbling and bobbling in the field
In his 12th start, Lorenzen allowed one run on six hits, three hits and seven strikeouts across six innings. Two those hits, both put in play toward third baseman Jonathan Schoop, could have been ruled errors.
The Tigers’ defense, specifically Schoop, didn’t help Lorenzen.
“Some generous scoring with the lack of errors,” Hinch said. “We could have had three errors, at least.”
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But Lorenzen stayed calm amid those mistakes and kept the Royals from scoring until the sixth, working around flubs from Schoop — who entered Tuesday with one error in more than 100 innings at third base — in the first and fourth innings.
“He locked in and stayed in it,” Hinch said. “He made some big pitches with guys on base and really left it out there, which I can appreciate. He had the one mishap with the ball down the (right-field) line. No room for error tonight with him, but he did his part, especially responding to a few base runners that weren’t all his fault.”
After Schoop’s first-inning miscue, Nick Pratto tried scoring on a two-out single from Maikel Garcia. The ball defected off the glove of second baseman Zack Short. Instead of panicking, Short stayed focused on the ball, picked it up and threw it to catcher Jake Rogers, getting Pratto at home for the third out.
After Schoop’s fourth-inning mistake, Lorenzen retired the next two batters — Nicky Lopez (strikeout) and Drew Waters (flyout) — to strand runners on first and second base. He struck out Lopez on four pitches.
The Royals didn’t score until the sixth inning.
“Not great command of my fastball today,” Lorenzen said, “but my changeup hid that really well to where I got some takes on fastballs late because they had to respect the changeup. That helped me quite a bit.”
Lorenzen, who threw 58 of 93 pitches for strikes, generated 13 whiffs with five four-seam fastballs, five changeups, two sliders and one sweeper. He added 16 called strikes and limited the Royals to an 87.7 mph exit velocity on 16 balls in play.
Bullpen backs it up
Left-hander Chasen Shreve and right-hander José Cisnero were dominant coming out of the Tigers’ bullpen to cover the final three innings. The pair of relievers delivered three scoreless innings.
But the Tigers’ offense failed to provide run support. In the sixth, Torkelson grounded into an inning-ending double play — hitting the ball 10 feet back to Lynch — after Short’s one-out walk.
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The Tigers finished 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position, all in the final two innings against Chapman and Barlow.
Barlow recorded his eighth save.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.